February is Career and Technical Education (CTE) month, and it comes at the perfect time to celebrate the students, teachers and industry partners who are growing the career readiness of America’s construction workforce. 

ABC contractor members Fluor, EMCOR Group, AECOM, Jacobs Engineering Group, Peter Kiewit Sons’, Schneider Electric and Siemens were featured on Fortune’s “The World’s Most Admired Companies” list. Almost 4,000 experts, including executives, analysts and directors, voted on the companies, which received high scores in social responsibility, long-term investment value, corporate assets, quality of products and services, global competitiveness, innovation, people management and quality of management.

On Feb. 5, 2018, ABC joined the Associated General Contractors, National Association of Home Builders and the Leading Builders of America in sending a letter to Republican and Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to express support for broad, bipartisan reform to the U.S. immigration system and recommend policies that would help address the workforce needs of construction industry employers.  

The unemployment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows growth in both public and private construction spending, according to an analysis by ABC. Construction added 36,000 net new jobs in January, an impressive increase of 0.5 percent on a month-over-month basis.  

Nonresidential construction spending expanded 0.8 percent in December, totaling $720.4 billion on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to ABC's analysis of data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. This represents the fifth consecutive month during which the pace of nonresidential spending has increased.